


"TT: I'm sorry."

by TTMIYH



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Advice, Grief/Mourning, Pesterlog(s) (Homestuck), venting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-11-04 19:31:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17904206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TTMIYH/pseuds/TTMIYH
Summary: Rose consoles John.Unlike most of my works, this will not feature a blurb from the work as its summary. This is me, the author, needing to bleed out my emotions into text. I might delete this tomorrow. I might delete it in a week. I might leave it up forever.I hope that if you read it, you can derive some measure of insight from it. The thought of learning moral lessons from a fanfiction is silly, but I've gotten moral lessons from the Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy that stuck with me my entire life, so maybe you can get one from a pesterlog fanfiction.





	"TT: I'm sorry."

tentacleTherapist [TT]  began pestering  ectoBiologist [EB]

TT: I'm sorry.   
TT: I know this might sound parodically high-brow of me, but I'm no stranger to loss. I know what it's like.   
EB: yeah.   
TT: Are you okay?   
EB: i don't know.   
EB: i don't know if i want to go tomorrow.   
EB: it's not going to be the same without them.   
TT: I know. It never is, and it never will be.   
TT: You don't have to come if you don't want to. You can grieve.   
TT: Losing a friend like this is a lot like losing a loved one to Death's icy embrace.   
TT: Even if they're still alive, it's not like you can talk to them or change what happened.   
TT: For our purposes, they might as well be dead, and that hurts.   
TT: This is going to sound like an incredibly oversimplified phrase coming from me, but funerals are painful.   
TT: Funerals for a friendship might be the worst of all. I'm sure a famous poet I can't recall has written a piece or two about that very topic.   
EB: can things be the same?   
TT: John. Of course they can't.   
TT: I know you, and I knew them, and I've known you both for roughly the same amount of time. I don't know, and I don't think I can know, you two the way you have.   
TT: The intricate spiderweb of your friendship stretches far past the viewport of my optic nerve.   
TT: It will never be the same.   
TT: We're just going to have to move on with our lives.  
EB: i don't know if i can.   
TT: You're going to have to. The only thing we're in control of in this world is ourselves.  
TT: Tell me, John. Have you ever heard of the "Locus of Control"?  
EB: i don't think so?   
TT: Well, it's something my therapist spent two years teaching me so I'm going to spend 15 minutes teaching it to you.  
TT: I know I can't burrow it in your head like the alien brain worm it is, but I hope I can plant a seed, and you think about it, and years from now it'll bloom.  
TT: The Locus of Control is how much of the world you believe yourself to be in control of.  
TT: Someone with a strongly external Locus of Control believes that nothing can be their fault. No matter how hard they try, any failure is the world's failure, and any success is due to outside factors.  
TT: Living like this is hard. It's almost impossible.  
EB: i can imagine.   
TT: But someone with a strongly internal Locus of Control is the opposite. No matter what they do, everything has to be in their control. All their successes are their own, and all their failures are their own, no matter what the circumstances.  
TT: Living like this is also nearly impossible.  
TT: Like many things in life, the balance is to be found in the middle. You need to consider what you're in control of, and what you're not.  
TT: This is going to sound supremely nihilistic but I mean it with as much care and sincerity as is humanly possible.  
TT: Repeat this after me. "There's nothing I can do about it."  
EB: there's nothing i can do about it.   
TT: Consider what's in your ability to control and what isn't. If a lightning strike explodes your favorite tree, there's nothing you can do about it. It's not your fault, and nothing you could've done could affect that.  
TT: And if you could, the moment has passed, so it doesn't matter. If you throw darts and miss, that's within your control.   
TT: This is going to hurt, but it's also the most important lesson.  
TT: Even if you point a gun to someone's head, they will never be in your control.  
TT: No matter what you do to them, when you boil things down to brass tacks, you can't control other people.  
TT: When someone decides to leave, you can try to stop them. But if they leave anyway, you shouldn't beat yourself up over it.  
TT: You can't control them.  
TT: "There's nothing I can do about it."  
TT: Does that make sense?  
EB: yeah.   
EB: sorry for keeping you up.  
TT: It's okay. Sometimes, going to a therapist is hard.  
TT: Therapists are cold and sterile and have clipboards and diagnoses. They're limited by professional ethics.  
TT: I'm your friend. Sometimes, what you need more than a therapist is just a friend willing to listen. Or, in this case, dispense advice.  
EB: yeah, i can understand that.  
EB: thanks for the help.  
TT: Of course. I know we sometimes like to play our little taunting and teasing games, but I'm here to help whenever I can, in whatever way I can.  
TT: Shall I assume you're headed to bed?  
EB: yeah.  
EB: and really, thanks.  
EB: i'm not being sarcastic, i do mean it!  
TT: If I thought you were capable of legitimate sarcasm I would've called you on the first "Thank you", not the second one.  
TT: Good night, John.  
EB: night rose.  


tentacleTherapist [TT] stopped pestering  ectoBiologist [EB]

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like pimping out my twitter and tumblr at the end of this work would be emotionally insincere. If you'd like to find my various social medias, look at one of my other works. Just mind the tags and warnings.


End file.
